Allow merchants to disable automatic split shipments for mixed inventory orders

Product Development & Sourcing
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Description:

I’m requesting an option to disable automatic order splitting when customers purchase both in-stock and pre-order/backorder items together.

Current behavior: When a customer orders in-stock items alongside pre-order items, Shopify automatically splits the order into separate shipments (“Ships now” / “Ships later”). This happens without merchant control.

Why this is problematic for small merchants:

  1. Cost burden

    • Small businesses cannot absorb the cost of multiple shipments per order. Unlike Amazon, we don’t have negotiated carrier rates or the margins to support split shipping.

  2. Customer expectations

    • Our customers understand they’re shopping with an independent business and are happy to wait for complete orders. They don’t expect Amazon-style logistics. A significant proportion of our customers - almost 50% - who are charged for split shipping consequently email us requesting a single shipment and refund of one of the shipping costs. This creates unnecessary customer service overhead and frustration on both sides.

  3. Sustainability

    • Multiple shipments mean more packaging materials and increased carbon footprint, which conflicts with many merchants’ sustainability commitments.

  4. Operational complexity

    • Split shipments create fulfillment complications, especially for merchants using 3PLs or apps like ShipStation that need special workarounds to prevent premature shipping.

Requested solution: Add a setting (in Settings > Checkout or Settings > Shipping) that allows merchants to choose:

  • ☐ Automatically split orders with mixed inventory availability (current default)

  • ☐ Keep orders together and fulfill when all items are available

This gives merchants control over their fulfillment strategy while maintaining the current default for those who want it.

Impact: This would significantly improve operations for small-to-medium merchants managing pre-orders, made-to-order items, or seasonal inventory without forcing enterprise-level shipping logistics on us.

Thank you for considering this feature request.

2

@Hunnyboots are there any custom apps you can use to halt fulfillment until the other item is available (the pre-ordered item). I don’t know much about how split shipments work but the 1st thing that came to my head is using draft orders.

4

Hi @Hunnyboots ,

Not sure if you’ve solved this issue, but have you tried Order Routing Plus? You can configure routing rules to run after order is placed in Shopify, thus giving you total control over how to route or split the orders, including trying to minimize shipments.

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I’m a developer looking into this problem specifically — not selling anything, and I don’t have anything to link. I’m trying to understand it properly before deciding whether it’s worth building for.

Reading through, I think there might be three different problems in this one thread, and they’d need different fixes. If anyone’s willing to say which one they have:

  • Are your splits caused by a handful of SKUs that only exist at one location, or is it spread across the whole catalogue?
  • Do the split orders actually ship separately, or do you pack them into one box and absorb the difference?
  • Carrier-calculated rates, or flat rates per profile?
  • How often — a few orders a week, or most mixed orders?

Happy to just read whatever detail you want to give.

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Hi @Hunnyboots Welcome To Shopify Community So While this exact toggle doesn’t exist as a dedicated setting yet, there are a couple of real workarounds worth trying in the meantime.

First, check Settings > Shipping and delivery for the “Split Shipping in Checkout” option specifically, if that feature is disabled (or if your store only has one fulfillment location / all products under one shipping profile), orders shouldn’t auto-split the way you’re describing, so it’s worth confirming your current settings rather than assuming it’s unavoidable.

Second, Shopify Flow can be set up to automatically hold fulfillment on any order containing both in-stock and pre-order/backorder items, so instead of the order splitting and shipping in two waves automatically, it pauses until you manually release it together, this gets you the “keep orders together” behavior you’re asking for, just via a workaround rather than a native toggle.

Third, if you’re using a preorder app (STOQ and similar), most of them have their own “mixed cart” controls independent of Shopify’s native behavior, some let you restrict mixed carts entirely (forcing separate checkouts) or configure split fulfillment rules per offer, which might give you more granular control than what Shopify’s native settings expose.

Given this is already a filed feature request with real merchant pain points behind it, it’s worth adding your specific numbers (like that ~50% refund-request stat) as a comment on the existing request thread if you haven’t already, concrete data like that tends to carry more weight for prioritization than a general “please add this” ask.